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A federal judge denied a Scranton law firm’s request for nearly $1 million in attorneys fees in an insurance case that netted its client just $125,000.

In a scathing, 100-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Malachy Mannion said the fees sought by attorney Michael Pisanchyn and his co-counsel, Marsha Lee Albright, are “mind boggling,” “outrageously excessive” and not supported by documentation. The judge said he is so disturbed by the attorneys’ conduct that he plans to refer the matter to the state disciplinary board to determine if they should be sanctioned.

“The plaintiff’s counsel billed approximately 2,583 hours for working on this case alone,” Mannion said in the opinion filed Tuesday. “Assuming an eight-hour billable work day, this would mean that the plaintiff’s counsel worked on nothing else but his case, every day, for approximately 323 days.”

Contacted Thursday, Pisanchyn passionately defended his work on the case, which involved a Monroe County man who sued an insurance company.

He said he worries Mannion’s ruling will dissuade other attorneys from taking on cases against insurance companies.

“I thought it was wrong what this insurance company did to these folks,” Pisanchyn said. “What attorney is going to take a case when they get their head bashed in for filing a fee petition when the judge goes through (it) line by line and questions everything you did?”

Attempts to reach Albright, who no longer works for Pisanchyn, were unsuccessful. At an Aug. 11 court hearing, Albright defended her work and said she felt “insulted” that her integrity was questioned.

“So it’s my belief as we sit here today everything that I’ve placed in this petition was to the best of my ability necessary and reasonable and on the conservative side,” she said, according to a transcript of the hearing, which Pisanchyn provided to The Times-Tribune.

Mannion’s ruling centers on a 2013 lawsuit Pisanchyn filed on behalf of Bernie Clemens of Stroudsburg, who sued New York Central Mutual Fire Insurance Company relating to injuries he suffered in a car crash.

The lawsuit sought compensation for “bad faith” against the insurance company for a delay in paying a $25,000 settlement of his claim for his injuries. A jury awarded Clemens $100,000 following a five-day trial in November 2015. Mannion upheld that award in a separate ruling Tuesday.

Under federal law, an attorney who prevails in a bad faith claim can seek payment from the insurer for each hour worked on a case. The attorney must provide detailed records justifying all hours billed.

The fee petition, which was created by Albright and verified by Pisanchyn, sought $902,655 in attorneys’ fees for work she, Pisanchyn, other attorneys, paralegals and staff performed.

Mannion denounced the petition, finding the vast majority of hours billed could not be justified because descriptions of the work performed were too vague, the amount of time spent on a particular task was excessive or duplicative of other hours that were billed.

Mannion said he was particularly troubled that none of the attorneys or other staff kept detailed records of the amount of time they spent on each task.

At an Aug. 11 hearing on the petition, Albright testified she “reconstructed” the hours she and others worked by reviewing an electronic filing system and documents.

Mannion questioned how accurately Albright could recreate the records, saying she had to “essentially guess” at the amount of time spent on each task.

“For attorney Albright to go back over six years of entries ... and ‘guess’ how much time it took other attorneys, paralegals or IT staff to perform entered tasks ... is flabbergasting to the court and, quite frankly, disturbing,” Mannion said in his ruling.

Despite the problems, Mannion found there was sufficient documentation for several hundred hours put in by attorneys, paralegals and other staff. However, the judge said he found Pisanchyn’s and Albright’s conduct relating to the fee petition so egregious that he was exercising his authority to entirely deny the fees sought.

“In all of the petitions for attorney’s fees handled by this court over many years, the court has never witnessed such an abuse by counsel,” Mannion said in his ruling.

Mannion also took issue with other aspects of the case, including the amount of interest Pisanchyn sought for his client on the award. Pisanchyn sought about $175,630 in interest, but Mannion ruled Clemens was entitled to just $4,986.

Pisanchyn said he takes issue with Mannion’s findings. He acknowledges that Albright did not always provide explanations of each entry, but said that information was contained in other documents in the court record. He also disputes findings that bills were excessive or duplicative.

“The court is not saying the work was not done,” Pisanchyn said. “The court is saying attorney Albright did not put as much detail in the files as the court would have liked. If he wanted it to be more specific we would have done that.”

Pisanchyn said he plans to appeal the judge’s ruling to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Should he prevail, he said he will donate all his fees, less money he spent on experts, to charity — a vow he said he conveyed to Mannion at the fee petition hearing.

Regardless of what happens, he doesn’t regret having represented Clemens.

“I’m happy to have fought for them if I get paid or not,” he said.

Contact the writer:

tbesecker@timesshamrock.com;

570-348-9137;

@tmbeseckerTT on Twitter

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